Authorities: Escaped Texas inmates captured

4/4/2013

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas — A capital murder suspect and a convicted drug offender who escaped from an East Texas jail were captured today, two days after they slipped past a fence only to be found in a neighboring county to the north.

Brian Allen Tucker and John Marlin King were captured in the town of Cooper, said Hopkins County sheriff's Deputy Alvin Jordan. He said they were being returned to the Hopkins County Jail in Sulphur Springs but had no other details.

Sheriff's officials said the inmates fled the jail Tuesday by scaling a fence or slipping through a gap in a perimeter fence in Sulphur Springs, about 75 miles northeast of Dallas. Officials said a maintenance person noticed a problem with the fence around a recreation yard used by female inmates. Hours later, deputies and other law enforcement were searching the woods and area east and northeast of the jail.

The men were found today just 20 miles north of the jail, holed up in a barn behind a house, said Scott Cass, sheriff from nearby Lamar County, which helped in the capture.

Tucker was being held on $1 million bond in the 2011 death of Bobby Riley of Mahoney. Riley was found strangled in his home and some music instruments and firearms had been stolen. Jury selection in his murder trial was set to begin June 3. He previously was convicted of burglary and driving while intoxicated, and has been arrested several times for violating parole.

King was being held on several charges, including evading arrest, burglary and possession of a controlled substance. According to court documents, he pleaded guilty last month to the possession charge as a habitual offender and received a sentence of 40 years in prison.

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